I can finally announce it.  Ink has dried.  Hands have been shaken.  Checks have been cut.  The deal is done.  I’ve signed a contract with New York publisher, Dorchester Publishing.  They will be publishing my novel, Accidents Waiting To Happen, next March in paperback under their Leisure imprint.

Wow.  I’ve finally cracked the big leagues.  It only took me just under eight years.  And it only seems like an eternity.  J

And I almost blew it.  Like all adventures in my life, nothing happens without a little drama.  In publishing, good news arrives by phone.  Bad news arrives by self-addressed envelope.  The editor called–but I was in the shower.  I didn’t hear the call, and my answering machine didn’t feel like recording it either.  When I got home that evening, the message light was flashing.  I hit play and got:

“Hi, Simon, it’s Don.  I’m calling about the b–”

He was calling.  That meant good news, right?  But he’d only had the manuscript a few days.  He might be calling because he spilt coffee over it and needed another copy.  Or maybe it was so monumentally bad, he wanted to break protocol to call me personally to tell me how much it sucked and how he wished he could have those hours back that he’d burned up reading it.  I wanted to call, but it was nine o’clock on the east coast.  I don’t think he would have appreciated me calling information to get his home number.  But if he had good news, I figured I should return his call, otherwise, what would he think?  Hey, that Simon Wood guy didn’t return my call.  He sounds like a bit of a dilettante.  We don’t need his kind here at Dorchester Publishing.  Worse still, his message could have come with a time limit. 

“Hi, Simon, it’s Don.  I’m calling about the book.  I love it, I want it, but you have to return this call in the next hour or the deal is off.”

How bad would that be?

At this point, I might have begun obsessing, but don’t quote me.  I think Julie may have punched me too.  I think she got a little bored with my theories–or craziness, as she liked to call it.  I went to bed and decided to lay awake thinking about what he would say when I called him back.  Who needs sleep when faced with the important phone call of their writing career?

So I called early the next morning and got the good news that Dorchester did want the book and none of my imagined scenarios applied. 

Don hit me with, “So what do you think?”

I was so out of emotion at this point that all I could muster was “sounds good.” Yeah, I know, but it was the best I could come up with.

Now I understand why authors have agents.  We shouldn’t be allowed outside without a handler.

After all that, Dorchester still wanted to give me a contract.

It goes without saying that this is a huge writing career boost for me that will propel me out of the small press world.  Leisure books have great distribution.  All the major chains carry their titles prominently.  It will no longer be an issue for my readers to obtain my books, and it will be easy for new readers to discover me.  This is what I’ve always wanted.  Journey’s end.

This doesn’t mean I can slack off.  No way.  All that has changed is that my work will be more available and more affordable.  Writing a damn good story and getting the word out is just as tough. 

While having a book coming out in mass paperback is a great opportunity, it’s also a burden.  My book and I will be in the spotlight.  No longer will I have the excuse that my book just isn’t seen.  My publishing reputation is mine to lose.  It’s a worry, but it’s also a challenge and it’s a challenge that I relish.  I can’t wait for this book to get out there and see how far it will go.

Does this mean I’ll forget those people I’ve worked with in the small press?  No.  I owe my reputation to the small press.  I’m hoping that the wider net Accidents Waiting To Happen will cast will draw new readers to my small press titles.  The reason for this is twofold.  First, I want to repay the faith those small press publishers had in my work.  Second, I’m not finished with the small press.  I have plenty of other projects that will appeal more to small press than NY publishing, because of their subject matter, word length, genre, etc.  For me, this will be the best of both worlds.  I want to have venues where I can tell all my stories.

I’m not sure what will happen from now on.  Hopefully, it will lead to foreign rights sales or something nice like that.  I’ve always wanted to see my work and not understand a bloody word of it.  I just hope that this is the start of a beautiful relationship. 

See you on the bookshelves,

Simon Wood

Deni Dietz

I was going to sub-title this week’s Quibbles & Bits: "Do Blogs Sell Books?" But I think I’ll write that one next week and, instead, talk about a recent newspaper survey.

My local Canadian newspaper, The Times Columnist [based in Victoria, B.C.], has never reviewed my books. That’s probably because my books aren’t International bestsellers, nor lit’ry enough, nor are they written by someone named Dan Brown (note to self: use the pseudonym "Dani Brown" for future books).

A few weeks ago the paper had an article called "Sexes divided on literary loves." The article included a survey of 3000 Canadians. That’s a lot of Canadians, folks—trust me. [Unless, of course, you’re counting calls/votes for Canadian Idol; then it goes up to around 3 million.]

Asked by Indigo Books to name their favorite books, male readers strongly preferred action-packed titles.

And this is news because…?

The majority of males chose J.R.R. Tolkein, Dan Brown [sigh] and Chuck Palahniuk. [Note to self: Change name to non-gender-specific Denny Dietz; change title of half-written "Toe of Frog" to THE DA VINCI TOAD.]

Sonya Gaulin, a spokeswoman for Indigo, said, "The books that women chose are more sentimental, whereas the ones men chose tend to be a bit more in the fantasy, adventure and mystery-thriller genre."

Well, duh!

The top seven books chosen by men in order of preference were: Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (for some reason, that one made me laugh for approx five minutes straight), and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown [sigh].

Women chose Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin, He’s Not That Into you by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo [Is that a new erotica?], Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, Confessions of a Shopaholic [great title!] by Sophie Kinsella, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.

I’ve actually read those last two, and, a long time ago, P and P [I didn’t like it, so sue me].

According to the survey, only 8 titles overlapped as favorites of men and women alike: Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by John Gray, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown [sigh], Tuesdays With Morey by Mitch Albon, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albon, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, and I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb.

Notice the lack of crime fiction. And of the 8 titles listed, I’ve read TDC [I didn’t like it, so sue me] and Mockingbird.

How many have you read? And, for that matter, what books would YOU have chosen? Top three will do; 8 is a bit much.

Last Sunday’s Times Columnist had an interview with Lee Child, cribbed from an Associated Press article. When talking about how he named his protagonist Jack Reacher, Lee said, "Every time I go to the supermarket — without exception, every time — because I’m tall and look approachable, a little old lady comes up to me and says, ‘You’re a nice tall gentleman. Will you reach and get me that can?’ So my wife said, ‘If this novelist thing doesn’t work out, you can get a job as a reacher in a supermarket.’ And I said, ‘Good name!’ So that’s where it came from."

So now I’m curious, Lee. Where did the name "Jack" come from?

In conclusion…

Notes to self:
1 – Change Denise Dietz to the non-gender-specific Denny Dietz, or even
better, Dani Brown or Denny Brown.

2 – Change titles of "diet club" mysteries THROW DARTS AT A CHEESECAKE, BEAT UP A COOKIE, and CHAIN A LAMB CHOP TO THE BED to:

THE MICHELANGELO MANIFESTO [after all, the Weight Winners diet club meetings take place in a church!]
IN SEARCH OF ALAN ALDA
INTENSITY [one-word titles seem to do well]

3 – I’m 5’2" and no one would ever ask me to reach for anything, but I am a free-lance editor, so name next protagonist "Freelance [Lance] Editor."

Over and Out,
Deni/Dani/Denny
author of the new Lance Editor mystery series, co-starring a vicious killer cat named Grateful Dead

by Pari Noskin Taichert

I’ve been thinking about sea lampreys this week. You see, I’ve been searching for animal images to embody my ideas about an often ignored subject: Overmarketing. Though books on promotion exhort us to use every trick we can, they rarely caution about overusing them. Yet, I’d bet all of us have met the author who overmarkets to the point of turning sweet to sour.

It comes down to this: there’s a difference between telling people about your book and pummeling them with it.

At its best, overmarketing comes off as annoying and pathetically desperate. At its worst, it offends. It repels and turns potential allies into gossipy ennemies.

Here are the three types of overmarketers I can define easily.

Sea Lamprey
This parasite has a big mouth, too many teeth and sucks the joy of a purchase right out of you.

Picture yourself going into a bookstore. An author walks up to you and starts talking about his books. You nod politely, perhaps ask a question, smile and start to walk way. The author accompanies you, still working to engage in conversation, interpreting each of your sighs as a confirmation of interest. You try to escape behind a bookcase. He finds you. Finally, you buy his damn book just to get rid of him. Sure, he made the sale, but I bet that $15 won’t cover the compounded negative stories customers will tell about him to other people.

Megamouth Shark
Though harmless enough, the megamouth inspires even the kindest person to hide — ducking into convenient bathrooms or jumping off cliffs — until this animal has cleared the waters.

This author has a mouth the size of Cuba. It’s the sheer volume of information gushing from her maw that initially tranfixes, and then horrifies, the poor person in its path. She can — and will — recite every blurb and review her books have ever gotten . . . verbatim. She turns every conversation, no matter how far the stretch, right back to her work and accomplishments. When attacked by this animal, you’re tempted to check if she has functioning ears; there appears to be no ability to listen.

Australian Cane Toad
Cane toads tend to be more experienced authors who’ve forgotten their beginnings, suffer from too much insecurity, or who think "humility" refers to the amount of moisture in the air.

Cane-toad authors sit on panels or in discussions and take them over in a poisonous way. This can be done by never answering the question asked (responding only about their books) or killing the competition through rudeness including clever insults, blathering and not listening. Within minutes of encountering a cane toad, the literary environment is out of balance and remains toxically so.

How do you avoid becoming one of these ugly animals?
It’s about balance, baby. Well, that, and common courtesy.

Know your audience.
Yeah, this sounds simple. Believe me, it isn’t. You have to work at it. Strive to be aware of the people with whom you hope to communicate. Know both their spoken and unspoken rules of etiquette no matter what the medium — be it face-to-face, the phone, in print or online. If you don’t take the time to understand your audience, you’ll always blunder.

Listen.
Talk WITH, rather than AT, people. An upside to doing this is that you’ll get unexpected ideas for your future marketing efforts. Also, you’ll learn to avoid the mistakes that irritate your main allies. Guess how I started thinking about overmarketing in the first place? It was because of the comments I heard from readers — and booksellers — about this or that author’s inappropriate behavior.

Watch (a.k.a. study).
A year before THE CLOVIS INCIDENT came out, I started going to mystery conventions and booksignings. Like a cultural anthropologist, I studied what worked and what didn’t. I noticed behaviors that engaged potential readers — and those that revolted them. In that first year, I encountered all of the human equivalents to the animals mentioned above.

Respect.
Today, audiences are far more marketing savvy than they used to be. Never forget that people can detect the sulphorous scent of condescension and the slimy textures of manipulation. Please, refuse to succumb to the temptation of arrogance.

In nature, lampreys, megamouths and cane toads can’t help what they are.

In our business, authors can.

cheers,
Pari (who’s feeling a bit like a brine shrimp today)

Jeffrey Cohen

I once asked a very famous person how to deal with bad reviews. The very famous person said, “Generally I say something like, ‘Oh, that? I barely read it.’ Or ‘Well, that’s merely one person’s opinion.’ Or ‘Hey, can’t win ’em all.’ Then I lock myself in the bathroom and sob loudly into a throw pillow I take in there with me for that purpose.” This is an accomplished professional whose career has been the absolute template for success in a field.

The relationship between authors and reviewers is a very complex one. Having done both, I can tell you that neither is easy, neither pays especially well except at the very top of the profession, and both are done for the sheer love of the form in almost every case. I’ve written reviews that I wish I could take back (all negative ones, even when the film/book/play/record in question was truly awful–I was snarky and shouldn’t have been), some that I would hold up for all the world to see and some that, well, I had a deadline and it was a slow week.

I’m proud of every novel I’ve written, which admittedly isn’t that many just yet (I’ve written five; three have been published, one is on its way and the other is still looking for a home), and have been happy to send each one out to book reviewers. Then I hold my breath, take some Maalox and make sure there’s a throw pillow within grabbing distance.

Book reviews are to authors what Snausages are to my dog: a hoped-for reward for a job well done. Granted, his job is somewhat easier than mine–it involves taking care of a bodily function in the right place–but the concept is similar. He does what he’s supposed to do, and we give him encouragement and approval.

That’s when the reviews are good. When they’re not, it’s more like we’ve done something we shouldn’t have in the house.

I know many book reviewers who are extremely scrupulous about their work, and making sure there’s no hint of favoritism (which is an interesting concept, since reviewing is by definition subjective, and you’re going to have favorites), who won’t let an author buy them a beer at a convention, citing conflict of interest. Most of the reviewers I’ve met are very serious about what they do, understand it has an impact on the work, and are dedicated to the genre and to books in general. They are, in my limited experience, remarkably conscientious about their work.

I don’t like to brag (no, wait a minute–I LOVE to brag), but my books have been almost uniformly well reviewed. I’ve been lucky, and since my Aaron Tucker novels have been published by a very small press, remarkably so, to have been reviewed in so many venues. There have been extremely generous comments in newspapers and magazines, and on a great many web sites. And I have been flattered by each and every one.

But the one I remember most clearly is the single outright pasting I took on a web site whose reviewers love virtually every book they can find (and whose name you may just as well not expect to see mentioned here). This review of my most recently published book AS DOG IS MY WITNESS was an eyelash short of violent, a pan of epic proportions that stopped just before the reviewer was to suggest I apply for a job at Home Depot and give up this writing thing before I did some real damage.

I could quote you whole sections of that review from memory. I read and read it, even as I told myself that it was wrong, that there were factual errors, that the reviewer got a major character’s name wrong, that all the other reviews had been very positive.

I took every word to heart. Finally, the world had caught up to the fraud that I am. Someone had discovered my secret–that I don’t know what I’m doing–and said it out loud. I was a hack, a pretender, a lightweight idiot who didn’t know his noun from his verb (actually, the “lightweight” didn’t seem so bad–I could lose a few pounds). It was all true, and I felt I should quit this business and move on to my true calling, whatever that was. Maybe this Home Depot idea wasn’t so bad. I hear they have dental.

After fifteen minutes or so, my blood pressure returned to normal. I forwarded the review to my publisher with the snide suggestion that he might like to pull a quote for our next praise sheet, suppressed the urge to call my mother so she could tell me how brilliant I was, and moved on to my next actual paying gig. Okay, so maybe I read a few of the positive reviews in the interim, just to remind myself that I had fooled some of the people some of the time. And that was the day I asked the very famous person about bad reviews.

Reviews should be a tool used by readers if they trust the reviewer’s judgment and not just because the reviewer has a tower to shout from. These days, everybody and his pet dog can post a review on the Internet, so readers need to be selective, reading carefully considered reviews from people like Sarah Weinman (who has never reviewed one of my books, so I can say so) and Oline Cogdill (who has). Read a few reviews of books you’ve read, and see if you agree with the reviewer. I tend to pay attention to reviews by Janet Maslin of the New York Times because I agreed with her even back when she was writing about movies. Those critics with whom I tend to disagree obviously won’t have as much influence on my consideration of a book, a movie or a whatever.

But I’ll never make a decision not to read or see something based on what a critic says. I might be persuaded to give something a try if I read that it’s something special, but if I’m interested in something I’ll make my own decision no matter what the critics said. I honestly don’t think Ishtar was all that bad (it’s no classic, but it’s also not the biblical disaster you’d think from the reviews), and I’m not that crazy about The English Patient despite the raves and the awards. That’s my taste; it might not be yours. Doesn’t make either one of us right.

The idea is to make up your own mind, and good reviewers will be the first to tell you that’s what you should do. Their job is to provide information and some perspective. My daughter went to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie Friday night, as soon as it was released, despite disappointing reviews. She didn’t love it as much as the first in the series, but she still wants to see it again. Her brother told her the critics didn’t care for the movie, and my daughter shrugged.

“What do they know?” she asked. “They’re part of the audience, just like me.”

(If you want to know why The English Patient doesn’t make sense, feel free to email me at jeff at aarontucker dot com.)

Unlike movies, books aren’t advertised on TV and radio, except on rare occasions.  So the responsibility for advertising my books falls on my shoulders.  Although an engineering student, I studied advertising and media at college.  I learned about the all-important “opportunities to view.”  Essentially, for an advertisement to work, it must be seen several times before the viewer remembers the product and this excludes all the times the viewer misses the advertisement.  So the ad has to be run dozens of times before it has an effect.  That’s a lot of advertising dollars that I’m not willing (or able) to foot, but that doesn’t mean I don’t advertise my work and myself. 

My short stories and articles are my advertisements and they work in two ways.  First, these stories and articles work for me as a calling card.  They remind people that I exist and I’m still doing that writing thing.  If they read one of my previous books, then maybe it’s time to check out another.  Second, my stories and articles operate like a “try before you buy program.”  People can sample my work without laying out a penny.  This is an important consideration if the reader is going to invest their money in a writer they’ve never tried before.  People get to read my work and if they like it, hopefully, they’ll go out and get my books.

This isn’t to say that my primary reason for writing stories and articles is mercenary.  The fact that they work as calling cards is an added benefit.  I write what I write because I want to.  The stories and articles flex my writing muscles.  The workouts they provide keep me trim.

There’s an added benefit of writing and selling articles instead of paying for advertising, too.  The magazines are paying me for my work.  They are paying me to advertise my current book or next book.  I couldn’t ask for more.  J

Now, writing short stories and articles doesn’t work for every writer.  Personally, I find it easy to write them, but I know a lot of novelists who find it impossible.  But every writer needs a calling card to help promote his or her work.  Mine is stories and articles.  What’s yours?

Simon Wood

For those who live in the States HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

This week my Quibble is called:

THAT DIRTY WORD

No, no, not that word. I’m talking about

PROLOGUES

Some readers hate ’em [or say they do].

My dictionary defines prologue as "the preface or introduction to a literary work." Does that mean that if/when I write a prologue I’ve written a literary work? Cool.

Another definition is: "An introductory or preceding event or development."

And that, my friends, is what I believe a good prologue should be . . . and most of the time they are. But, somehow, the prologue has gotten a bad rap. It’s a dirty word.

What I hear – a lot:

"I skip prologues."
"I don’t think you need ’em."
"Why can’t it be Chapter One?"
"I read a prologue that had nothing to do with the book."

That last quote is valid, IF a prologue has "nothing to do with the book." But I can’t believe a professional author sets out to write a prologue that has nothing to do with his/her book [or a book that has nothing to do with his/her prologue]. So WHY does the prologue have a bad rep?

I pulled a few books – at random and I didn’t cheat – from my bookshelf.

John Grisham’s The Firm doesn’t have a prologue.

Clive Cussler’s Raise TheTitanic has one, except he calls it a "Prelude."

Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides has a Prologue that ends thusly:
I will tell you my story.
Nothing is missing.
I promise you.

Tess Geritsen’s Body Double has a Prologue. Skip it and you’ve missed an important part of the book.

Harlan Coben’s Tell No One has no prologue. But it’s not Chapter One, either (that starts on page 11). The prologue that isn’t a prologue isn’t headed by any title. Clever Harlan.

And last but not least, Gordon Aalborg’s The Specialist. No Prologue, but Chapter One has a subtitle that reads:
Tasmania                                           
[Where there be devils]
Clever Gordon!

Once upon a fairly long time ago, I wrote a Prologue for FOOTPRINTS IN THE BUTTER. The Prologue took place at a high school reunion dance. Shortly thereafter, one of the reunionites gets thunked over the head with a miniature reproduction of "The Thinker." Chapter Two has Ingrid [my sleuth] discussing the murder with her friend Cee-Cee [who at age 60+ is still sleeping with her ex-husband, a cop – that way I can bring the cops in without bringing the cops in :::grin:::]. Ingrid talks about the people at the reunion dance and their motives and Cee-Cee responds. My agent asked if Cee-Cee "knew these people." My answer: "She does if she read my prologue."

The Prologue became Chapter Three — what I fondly called my "flashback  Chapter." And yes, I had to rewrite the Ingrid/Cee-Cee scene. [To your left is the large-print edition – Trade paperback in the US, hardcover in the UK,]

Today I’m schizy about putting Prologues in my books. As a mid-list author, I can’t afford to lose one potential reader, so I tend to write my prologues under the guise of an introduction.

Here’s a [short] intro to my next book, THE LANDLORD’S BLACK-EYED DAUGHTER, a "paranormal history-mystery romance."

                        6, April, 1766

            Seated beside the open coffin, the watchers waited. They waited
to see whether Barbara Wyndham’s body moved. They watched intently while
mourners trailed past. Blind belief said that if Barbara’s body began to
bleed, ‘twould identify her murderer.
            There was some question as to whether Barbara had suffered a
seizure of the heart and fallen and hit her head on a rock. Or had she been
struck by some unknown hand?
            Seven-year-old Elizabeth Wyndham watched with the watchers, but
her mother remained motionless.
            "Mama," Elizabeth whispered, "are ye sleeping?"
            "Your mother sleeps evermore, my Bess," said Lawrence Wyndham,
lifting his daughter up into his arms.
            Elizabeth pressed her tear-streaked face against his shoulder.
At the same time she wondered with a twinge of fear how it would feel to
sleep evermore.

Is that a prologue? Sure it is. It’s a "preceding event" — a thread that runs throughout the book. But I "cheat" by heading it with a date [rather than "that dirty word"].

The other day I found an interesting prologue. It’s on my pillow. It says: "Do not remove tag under penalty of law."

It’s a very successful prologue because I want to know more. Like, why?

Over and Out,
Deni

Pari Noskin Taichert

It’s vacation time for many people in the U.S. this week. I’m going to take a little break too. Rather than contemplate heady concepts about marketing, writing, or the mystery community, I thought it’d be nice to show you some pictures from our three-day family vacation to Ruidoso, NM. Okay, there was a little work there; I had a book signing in that small mountain town, but the bulk of our time was spent exploring South Central NM.

I had difficult time getting all the photos to line up with my narrative captions in this entry. Please pardon any of the confusion. When I tried to move them, it didn’t work and I decided to get this post up before the entire day passed. If you can’t figure anything out, just post a comment and I’ll explain it.

Here goes . . .

Acomilla rest stop is about 60 miles south of Albuquerque. It’s one of my favorites because of its spectacular setting. As you can see, it’s built on stilts. I assume that’s to keep some of the dust out when the wind sweeps this landscape. 

The photo to the right shows a bit of the view from the rest stop.

Heading into Carizozo, you come upon an unlikely landscape of black lava rock. Here, in the distance, you can see El Capitan, the volcano that erupted to produce this particular anamoly.

The picture to the right is at the beginning of the Valley of Fires State Park. 

The following are two photos from Bonita Lake a few miles outside of Ruidoso. They show both the landscape and the fact that the lake is far below its normal level due to the drought. The picture on the right is exposed lake bed.

Ah, here we get to the business of the trip. On the left are Becky and Myk Ewing of Books, Etc. This couple is an example of the best in booksellers. They live in a fairly conservative town and make a point of bringing as much variety to their bookstore as possible. Notice Myk’s tee-shirt.

So many of New Mexico’s
museums are located in improbable places. To the left is the "Cube," the interior of the NM Museum of Space History. We arrived too late to enter, but it didn’t matter. Outside there is a park with space and military objects.

It’s an astounding site. To the right is a anti-aricraft missile aimed right at the town of Alamogordo. I’ve also included one more picture of the location because it was so odd and gorgeous.

Southwest of Alamogordo is one of the most marvelous national parks in our country. White Sands is a place you mustn’t miss. In the summer, the park is open until 10 pm most evenings. On full moon nights, it stays open until midnight. People come to have dinner — as we did — and then play on the dunes until it gets too dark to see.  The sand here is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. It embraces you in fine warmth. My husband, who eschews most "spiritual" references said that he felt healed after spending time in the park.

The little pod-like structures are small picnic shelters. It’s wonderful to be in this frozen tundra landscape and to feel such warmth. Of course, you can see 40-60 miles in any direction as well — but that’s common in NM.

Many people bring sleds to slide down the dunes. We brought old aluminum snow dishes–but they were too sticky for the gypsum sand. It didn’t matter one iota.

The last day of our trip, we drove from Ruidoso to Cloudcroft in the heart of the Sacramento Mountains. Much of this land is owned by the Mescalero Apache tribe. While many Native Americans ended up with horrid, waterless reservations when they dealt with the U.S. Government, the Mescaleros had the opposite experience. They own some of the most gorgeous and fertile acres in our state. The pictures below show a bit of the mountains and, distressingly, evidence of poaching.

  While taking a short hike,
in the area to the left, we found two elk carcasses. Both had been left just off of the path — and both had been killed for their antlers which had been sawed off. It was sad to see these mighty animals so wasted. The hunters didn’t even bother to harvest the meat. I’d say this was the only low point of our trip.

  On the drive down the mountain from Cloudcroft, on the left side of the road, is the remnant of an old logging bridge. Can you imagine cross that thing — even when it was new?

Finally, I’m going to end this little travelogue with pictures from another one of my favorite places in the world. Three Rivers Petroglyphs Park is located between Tularosa and Carizozo. Nearly 20 years ago, I went there with some friends. At the time, these petroglyphs weren’t protected. I’m grateful they now are. The thing that shocked me then, and still does, is that visitors can walk among them — they can leave the path and climb over rocks to see as many as they want. Granted, they might find a rattlesnake or two — but that’s kind of cool, too.

To the left is the path that now leads to the hundreds of petroglyphs. The photo to the
right gives you a small idea of the splendor of the location of Three Rivers in the Tularosa Basin.

On the left is a butterfly. I could have taken — and inserted many more pictures of Three Rivers, but just wanted to give you a small feel of the place. The last photo in this missive is, to me, one of the most precious.

When I came to this site nearly 20 years ago, I found this face and stopped dead in my walk. Most of you don’t know that my mom collected Asian art and I got my undergrad degree in Asian Studies. One particular interest of mine was Tibetan art.  This face looked so Tibetan to me, I never forgot it. It also convinces me that many of the "primitive" cultures of the U.S. came from Asia. What do you think?

Well, thank you for indulging me. I hope all of you have a safe 4th of July — if you celebrate it — and if you don’t.

This trip through a small part of New Mexico gives you an idea of how large my homestate is. I hope it also gives you an inkling of why I adore my home so very much.

Cheers.

Jeffrey Cohen

When Lawrence Block sold the rights to his Bernie Rhodenbarr novels to Hollywood, do you think he expected the part to be played by… Whoopi Goldberg?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think Whoopi Goldberg can be a terrific actress (watch The Color Purple sometime, and you’ll see what I mean), and I have no sexist predisposition toward keeping a character the same gender, if there’s something to be gained by changing said gender. But did you see Burglar? What were those people smoking?

The minute a writer finishes typing “THE END” at the bottom of a page, s/he starts thinking about who should play the featured character in the story when it (inevitably, in the author’s mind) becomes a movie. Sometimes, we think about it before writing the novel, to let you in on a trade secret. And that’s fine. People will often ask me who I think should play Aaron Tucker on TV or in the movies, and my standard answer is “oh, that is so far off in the distance. I don’t think about that.”

Yeah, right.

The fact is, the day I sold the first Aaron novel, the publisher himself asked me who I thought would be right for a film version of For Whom the Minivan Rolls. And the question did not catch me off-guard by any means; I’d given it plenty of thought already. Since enough people already thought I’d modeled the character after myself, I decided to suggest people who weren’t astonishingly handsome, just so I wouldn’t seem egotistical. Then I realized there are only four people in Hollywood who aren’t astonishingly handsome, and three of them are over 70, and probably wrong for the part. Debbie Reynolds, for example (and no disrespect: she was darned attractive in 1956). I don’t think she’d be good as Aaron.

It’s a game we all play. I have my preferences in the fantasy version of my movie. I won’t actually say who I’d prefer for Aaron, since I don’t want Tom Cruise to feel he’s out of the running (Tom, I lost your number–give us a call). Aaron is rather noticeably height-impaired, but I imagine that if they wanted to buy my book, I’d be tickled if we could get it going with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the lead.

That’s the point: we authors need to understand that our books are many things, but one of those is a property. If we choose to sell the rights to that property, we really can’t complain if someone makes changes to it of which we don’t approve. We opted to sell. We could have opted not to sell, and then they wouldn’t have been able to make the changes.

If you own a car, and you decide to sell it so you can buy a new car, you place an ad in the newspaper or on the Internet, and you find interested buyers. After negotiating, you come to an agreement with one, and that person gives you the amount of money (or chickens, or Oreo cookies, whatever) you have agreed is fair. You give him the car, or more specifically, the title to the car.

Suppose the next day that guy decides to take his new car and paint it orange. With pink polka dots. And chartreuse flames on the front fenders. And maybe rip out the Corinthian leather seats that you insisted on at the dealership and put in some with zebra upholstery. And then he takes out your state-of-the-art stereo system and replaces it with a radar detector and two tin cans with a string.

You could decry the bad (in your opinion) taste the new owner is exhibiting. You might feel betrayed, duped, appalled. Sure. But you can’t tell him what he can do because it’s his car now. You want to express an opinion? Go ahead. You want to tell your friends about the concrete-brained imbecile who bought your baby and turned it into a junkheap on purpose? Feel free.

But the bottom line is, it’s his car, and he can do what he wants with it.

The same principle, alas, pertains to those of us who are fortunate enough to attract some interest in our books from those who produce television, movies, radio and for all I know, educational filmstrips. We solicit (sometimes through our agents) their interest. We welcome their offers. And then, if we’re supremely lucky and especially persistent, we get some of their money in exchange for the right to produce entertainment based on our original ideas. And that’s where it ends.

If you cash the check, you have sold your right to the material. The purchaser, who now owns it, can do with it as s/he likes. If they want to take your 19th Century Anglican bishop and turn him into a talking llama, they can do it. You cashed the check.

The only way to have control over what happens to your story once it hits a screen of any size is to use your own money to produce the film, and then write the screenplay and direct it yourself. And even then, because filmmaking is a creative process, you will have to collaborate with actors, cinematographers, editors and a host of other technicians and creative artists who have more experience doing this than you do.

Deal with it.

I have not yet had one of my novels torn to shreds by Hollywood, but I’m certainly open to it. If the day comes that I am lucky and persistent, and someone from the land of disposable entertainment feels moved to hand me a chunk of cash in exchange for the right to completely obliterate what I slaved over and fretted about for months before handing it over to a publisher, I will weigh my options.

And then I’ll take the money. Believe it. I have two kids to put through college and I’m a freelance writer. How much do you think I have saved?

Once that check is cashed, I may become appalled at how my precious ideas are discarded, defaced and otherwise mashed into something I’d be ashamed to call my own. It’s possible. Maybe given the way things go, it’s probable. I hope I’m lucky enough to find out.

But you won’t hear me complaining publicly about it (maybe to friends and family, but not out in the world). Not once.

After all, I will have cashed the check.

I suppose it’s because of the times we live in—we can get anything we want and fast.  Technology has placed the world in our hands.  It’s just as easy for me to communicate with my friends and family back in England as with my friends in this country.  We can get everything in an instant—coffee, movies, music, mac ‘n’ cheese.  This godsend has a tendency to make us impatient. 

I’m guilty of this.  If I see more than two cars lined up in the drive-thru or people standing in front of the ATM, then screw it, I’m going elsewhere.  Time and Simon wait for no man.

I’ve seen this trait for instant gratification amongst writers.  They want to see their book in print the moment the manuscript spills off the printer.  But traditional publishing isn’t like that.  It’s a big machine that moves slowly.  A lot of planning and a lot of people are involved in the book making process.  I had a book release party for Working Stiffs at the weekend and one of my guests asked me how quickly it took from start to finish.

“Nine months,” I said, injecting a healthy dollop of incredulity.

“That slow?” my guest remarked.

They read me all wrong.  Nine months is bloody fast!  I worked my butt off for six months writing it and the publisher busted his hump for three getting the cover done, copy editing and working with the printer, etc.   And this was for a small press book not bogged down by big publishing machinery.

None of this takes into account the process of finding an agent and a publisher.  Take my first book, Accidents Waiting To Happen.  I started it in January ’99, began sending out the manuscript that September, collected a bucket load of rejections, didn’t land a contract until October ’01, and it wasn’t published until July ’02.  That’s three and a half years.  If I hadn’t sold a bunch of my stories in the meantime, I’m not sure I would have stuck with it.  Three and a half years is a long time to wait.

I won’t say I felt hard done by waiting this long, but I felt I’d paid my commitment and patience dues.  My story pales in comparison to some successful writers out there.  I know one mystery writer who waited eight years to sell that first book.  Another wrote ten novels before he sold one to a major publisher.  I can’t imagine writing ten books and getting nowhere.  I would have given up a long time before I sat down to write the tenth book.

Vanity presses and print-on-demand (POD) services make it possible to take a freshly printed manuscript and turn it into a book in a matter of days.  So I can see the appeal to the writer.  Why punish yourself with the waiting game when you can have your dream today?

I won’t condescend and say that just because I waited nearly four years to see my book in print, you should too.  It’s a lame and insulting argument. 

But I will say you’re doing yourself no favors going for instant gratification.  Writing may be an art but it’s also a craft, and crafts have to be honed.  A writer, like any craftsman, needs time to develop his skills.  Traditional publishing is a big machine and not everything it produces is solid gold, but it contains a lot of talented people whether it be writers, agents, editors, etc.  Whether you or I like it, it takes time to be heard.   The cold hard fact of the matter is just because a writer writes doesn’t mean he or she deserves to be published.  Your work may not be ready yet, your subject too controversial or worst of all, you may not be good enough.  Writing is a leap of faith.  A writer’s belief in their work and dedication to the craft can all be for naught.   Every time I commit to writing a story or book, I have no idea whether it will be published.  I have a small yet significant body of work behind me, but I hope and pray it will be good enough for publication when I send it off to the publishers. 

Vanity presses can bring you publication today, but they can’t give you the distribution, advances, marketing, and editing that the developing writer is going to need to become an accomplished writer.  Like I mentioned in my early posts, small press publishers have published my first three books and getting those books seen has been tough.  With POD printing services, those hardships are magnified.  Reviewers tend not to review self-published books and stores tend not to stock them.  For a self-published book to be a success, the writer has to spend the majority of their time selling the book instead of developing their writing skills.

The hardest book to sell will be the first.  It may take years, but it’s worth the battle.  The difference it will make to your sales and ability to build a career is immense.  If you want to see your book published in every store and given every chance for success, then you have to be in it in for the long haul.  There are many ways of getting there, but going for instant gratification isn’t the answer.

Every writer (new and experienced) wants their work published, but publish well, not fast.  It’ll make a world of difference.

Simon Wood

PS: David B. Silva’s Hellnotes reviewed Working Stiffs very favorably, as have Crime Spree and Cemetery Dance.  You can read the Hellnotes review here. 

Deni Dietz

                             BREW HA-HA [no, that’s not a misspelling]
                                    or
                             BREW HOO-BOY

Last week the ITW [International Thriller Writers] Awards raised a lot of dust, eh? Funny thing is, I wouldn’t have even noticed that all the nominees were male, had it not been brought to my attention; had I not been thunked on the ol’ noggin with a blog-mallet. [And this from someone who practically memorized Marlo Thomas’ Free To Be You And Me, whose daughter at age 5 wanted to know why it was called a menu and not a womanu.]

People, friends, fellow authors, if you want to get your knickers or tightie whities in a twist, how about tackling "real" issues? I’m against the War, any War. I hate it that funding for libraries is practically non-existent. I hate it when I call with a question about my bank account [or computer] and I speak to someone with too-perfect English who admits he’s pretending to be from Peoria. I hate that people are stealing files with my personal information, or that phone companies can give the government stuff about me, or that the government wants personal stuff about me, and I hate Wal-Mart.

Those are the issues I fret over.

As far as my Awards opinion, it won’t make me very "popular" and I’ll probably never again be short-listed for an awar—oh, wait, I’ve never been short-listed for a major award. So I guess one could say Deni has sour-grape issues (Deni loves talking about herself in third-person), but they’d be wrong. Dead wrong.

People, friends, fellow authors, lend me your ears. Somehow, hard as I try, I can’t envision ITW judges receiving submissions and forming 3 separate piles: Male, female, Initials. And that’s where last week’s brouhaha breaks down. As an author, I must give my characters motivation [otherwise my plots break down]. Where’s the motivation in short-listing a guy author over a woman author? It just doesn’t make any sense.

For want of a better word — and because I’ve racked my brain for a catchy phrase and couldn’t find one, I’ll designate this week’s Quibbles & Bits:

DESIGNATIONS

I hate ’em.

I’ve been told they’re necessary because bookstore personnel need to know where to shelve books. So why, may I ask, did my first mystery novel Throw Darts at a Cheesecake get shelved with the cookbooks? And why did my stand-alone thriller Fifty Cents For Your Soul (which Publishers Weekly called "Horror and Hollywood noir") get placed on the Inspirational shelves?

I’ve been told designations are necessary because agents need buzz words to sell books to editors (and editors need buzz words to satisfy marketing departments).

Agent to Editor: "It’s a thriller. Think Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series, only this has a woman protagonist, her sexagenarian sidekick, and a three-legged dog ."

Editor to Marketing Dept: "It’s a saga. Think: ‘Lonesome Dove’ with sex."

Author to agent/editor: "It’s a cozy. Think P.D. Christie’s ‘The Cat Who Tatted Lace While Brewing Cappuccino and Cutting Hair.’"

And by the way, why the heck don’t we have an award for cat mysteries? We could call it the Pussy Awards — or even better, YELP [Yarns Embodying Lynxlike Personifications].

"Hey, d’ya hear? I was short-listed for a YELP."

When you have designations, you have the following conversations:

"I don’t read cozies."
"What’s a cozy?"
"I’m not sure. I think it has to do with knitting and recipes. And cats. A friend of mine wrote a mystery with a cat and she won a YELP."

I don’t read woo woo."
"What’s woo woo?
"Supernatural shit. I hate it when a sleuth solves a mystery with ESP."
"What book did that happen in?"
"I don’t know. I told you, I don’t read woo woo."

Book Awards have designations: Mystery, Romance, SF/Fantasy, and so on. Skipping the fan [AKA Readers Choice] awards and concentrating on the ones that get judged . . . I was an Awards judge once. I had to read 40 books, and here’s my confession for the world (okay, the 20 or so people who read my blog every week) to hear: [whispering] I didn’t read every page of every book! If the book didn’t grab me by page 50, I skimmed.

I hang my head in shame, but assuming I eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom, it takes me a minimum of 2 days to read a book. You do the math. Forty books = 80 days. I’ve heard judges say they "get over a hundred entries and read every word." At one book every 2 days, that would take ME, at the very least, 200 days.

I’m not saying it can’t be done . . .

By the way, one of my favorite (award-winning) authors is Barry Eisler. His [controversial] June 21st. blog was titled: INDEPENDENTS, CHAINS AND DRIVE BY SIGNINGS
http://www.barryeisler.com.blog

Last week was one hell of a week, eh?